Science Without Frontiers: Cosmopolitanism and National Interests in the World of Learning, 1870–1940, by Robert Fox

Abstract

The title of Robert Fox’s brief and deftly written book is not only a statement of its object of inquiry—scientific internationalism before and after the First World War—but also a declaration of the author’s optimistic adherence to ‘the goal of knowledge open to all’ (p. 111). The latter element is only explicit in the introduction and epilogue, but substantially informs the analysis in between: a tone of celebration pervades the first chapter’s account of the leading manifestations of an explosion of standardisation and co-operation around the turn of the twentieth century; one of melancholy emerges as the second and third chapters detail the ‘fractured world’ of scientific endeavour that emerged after 1918. The book’s main contentions are clearly set out and pursued consistently throughout. Internationalism in the sciences peaked in the decades prior to 1914, motivated by a combination of concerns over the proliferation and increasing specialisation of knowledge and publications, and commitments to the free exchange and easy availability of information (pp. 11–44). The outbreak of war abruptly curtailed internationalist ideals and mechanisms, and the repeated insistence on national distinctiveness over the following four years coupled with the victors’ refusal to be conciliatory after the Armistice represented a ‘watershed’ in science every bit as much as in other arenas (pp. 45–73). When, from the mid-1920s, there was ‘a concerted move to reestablish normal relations within the world of science’ (p. 74), residual notions of national difference remained, and were exacerbated under totalitarian regimes and a wider shift towards state-sponsored science during the 1930s (pp. 74–106). Despite these changes, vestiges of internationalist ideals remained and informed ventures such as UNESCO after the Second World War, as well as more recent Internet-based efforts to promote universally accessible knowledge (pp. 107–11).